The Aga Khan University LIBRARIES
L I B R A R I E S
IMPLEMENTING INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORY SYSTEM IN AKU:
NUTS AND BOLTS
Ashraf Sharif, Systems Librarian
The Aga Khan University LIBRARIES
AGA KHAN UNIVERSITY

First private university of Pakistan – Chartered in 1983

Promotes human welfare through research, teaching and services

Operating primarily in developing countries
Programmes & Campuses
 Afghanistan – FMIC, PGME, NE
 East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda) – Hosp., PGME, ANS, Edu
 Pakistan – AKU, Hospitals(8), MC, SoN, PGME, IED, PDCs
 United Kingdom - ISMC
L I B R A R I E S
AKU- FACILITIES & SERVICES
The Aga Khan University LIBRARIES
 Teaching Hospitals
 Nursing Schools
 Medical Colleges
 Institutes for Educational Development & PDCs
 Examination Board
 Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations
 Faculties of Arts and Sciences – Planning phase
L I B R A R I E S
AKU – OFFICE OF UNIVERSITY LIBRARIAN
The Aga Khan University LIBRARIES
 Established in 2008
 Responsible for overall management and development of Libraries and
Learning Resources across AKU international campuses
 Facilitates the creation of a network of AKU Libraries by maintaining
AKU libraries’ individual identity
 Sharing of resources and services throughout all campuses
 Mr. Normand Demers was appointed Ist University Librarian
L I B R A R I E S
AKU LIBRARIES
The Aga Khan University LIBRARIES
South Asia
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Faculty of Health Science (FHS), Karachi, Pakistan
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Institute for Educational Development (IED), Karachi , Pakistan
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IED-Professional Development Centre, Gilgit , Pakistan
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IED-Professional Development Centre, Chitral , Pakistan
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Examination Board, Karachi , Pakistan
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French Medical Inst. for Children (FMIC), Kabul, Afghanistan
East Africa
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Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS), Nairobi, Kenya
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Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS), Dar es Salam, Tanzania
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Institute for Educational Development (IED), Dar es Salam, Tanzania
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Faculty of Health Science (FHS), Kampala, Uganda
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Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Arusha, Tanzania
The UK

Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations (ISMC), London
L I B R A R I E S
The Aga Khan University LIBRARIES
WHAT’S AN IR ?
An institutional repository is an online locus for collecting, preserving,
and disseminating (in digital form) the intellectual output of an institution,
particularly a research institution.
Purpose of an IR

To manage and show-case institutional information assets (articles,
theses, publications, etc.) under one interface

To facilitates world wide readership leading to an increase in the
profile and prestige of the institution
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To provide a platform to the faculty and researchers for open-access
web publishing (e-journals and e-books)
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To demonstrate to funding bodies the breadth and depth of output
from the institution
L I B R A R I E S
IR SYSTEMS (OPTIONS)
The Aga Khan University LIBRARIES
Open Source Solutions
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Dspace – MIT & HP Labs
Eprints - University of Southampton, UK
Fedora - Cornell University & University of Virginia
Proprietary Solutions

Digital Commons – by bepress
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CONTENTdm – by DiMeMa, Inc.
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Open Repository – by BioMed Central
Other
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Out sourcing – contract with local/international software house
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In-house development – develop by institution itself
AKU opted for proprietary solution, Digital Commons as AKU IR platform
L I B R A R I E S
The Aga Khan University LIBRARIES
PLANNING
FOR
AKU-IR
Project initiation – July 2011 – Oct 2011
 Conceptualization – In a meeting of URC
 Brainstorming – at AKU Library heads meeting at Nairobi, Kenya – Oct 2012
 Discussions – with different stake holders i.e. Dean Research, CIO, Public Affairs:
Project Planning – Nov 2011 – Dec 2011
 Committees & teams
 Product evaluations & selection

Singing of contract
Selected Digital Commons, a product of bepress, CA-based company
L I B R A R I E S
SYSTEM SPECS
Model
The Aga Khan University LIBRARIES
 On the could (SaaS-based solution)
Coverage
 Software, hardware, customization, implementation, infrastructure, training, hosting,
offsite backups, technical support, software upgrades, publishing 5 free online journals
Access Model
 Open Access
 Capable to restrict access, fully or partially
Metadata standards
 Dublin Core
 OAI-PMH
 XML Schema
Multi-lingual support
 Supports Unicode metadata and full-text objects i.e. CJK and right-to-left scripts, and
other non-Latin scripts
Peer review management tool
 Provides a professional-grade editorial management system for peer review process
L I B R A R I E S
IMPLEMENTATION
The Aga Khan University LIBRARIES
Project implementation
 Kick-off meeting – 07 January, 2012
 Mock-up site – 30 March, 2012
 Live site – 06 June, 2012
 Quiet launch – 30 June, 2013
 Go-live
eCommons – AKU Institutional Repository http://ecommons.aku.edu
L I B R A R I E S
IR SETUP -
NUTS & BOLTS
The Aga Khan University LIBRARIES
Set-up & Design

Name of IR – eCommons@AKU
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URL of IR – http://ecommons.aku.edu

Contacts (Primary, IR Admin, IT person)
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Logo / branding
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Header banner options
Site Layout
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Sidebar (Left/right aligned)
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Navigation tabs (Above/below header)
Site Typography
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Fonts, colours, etc.

AKU Style Guide
L I B R A R I E S
IR POLICIES -
NUTS & BOLTS
The Aga Khan University LIBRARIES
Links to be provided at landing page
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
About IR

Introduction of IR with material deposit policies
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Who and how to contribute
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Contact information
FAQ


My Account


A set of suppose to be asked questions with the answers
Logging information, typically the system sends email to IR Admin
Accessibility Statement

This is a standard accessibility statement governed by the rules of the service
provider’s country
L I B R A R I E S
IR ORGANIZATION
The Aga Khan University LIBRARIES
Formats: Text (searchable PDF), images, audio, video, datasets
Genres: Researchers’ scholarship or creative work, undergrad research, gray
literature, digital books, conference material
Publication types:

Faculty articles, post prints, presentations, technical reports, etc.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)
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Journals (Peer review)
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Books Galleries
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Book Chapters
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Events (Conferences, meetings, etc.)
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Faculty/Researcher Profile (an add-on)
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Others (newspapers articles, newsletter, magazines, reports, etc)
L I B R A R I E S
The Aga Khan University LIBRARIES
AKU IR- CONTENT RECRUITMENT
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Planned to start uploading from AKU-Pakistan, as a seed collection
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Copyright check
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SherpaRomeo - http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/

Articles published in GREEN journals took first
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Started getting copyright clearance from publishers/authors
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Uploaded 400+ full text articles (published in local journals in current 5 years
i.e. JPMA, JCPSP, JAMC) as seed collection by end of October 2012

Uploaded 2000+ articles (published in local and foreign journals in current 5
years) metadata and full-text articles by the end of June 2013, where
copyright permissions are available

450+ theses metadata from AKU Pakistan and East Africa

Uploaded full text books, full text book chapters, where we got permission
from the copyright holder(s).
L I B R A R I E S
COPYRIGHT POLICIES
The Aga Khan University LIBRARIES
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo
Publisher copyright policies & self-archiving
RoMEO Colour
Green
Blue
Archiving policy
Can archive pre-print and post-print or publisher's version/PDF
Can archive post-print (ie final draft post-refereeing) or publisher's
version/PDF
Yellow
Can archive pre-print (ie pre-refereeing)
White
Archiving not formally supported
L I B R A R I E S
COPYRIGHT LICENSES
The Aga Khan University LIBRARIES
http://creativecommons.org
Copyright licenses
L I B R A R I E S
eCOMMONS@AKU
: STATISTICS
Uploads
The Aga Khan University LIBRARIES

Around 3,000 items
Downloads

80,672 - downloads in the past year
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85,362 full-text downloads to date
L I B R A R I E S
eCOMMONS@AKU
The Aga Khan University LIBRARIES

: CHALLENGES
Copyright clearance issues
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Some publishers give the permission for internal use only

Faculty left AKU, contacts not available for copyright

Some vendors Sage/Wiley/InfoWorld sells copyrights @ $50-300/article approx.

Pre-print are not available with faculty/department

Archival of some journals/newspapers is not available in AKU libraries

Metadata harvesting – data not available in required format

Staffing (additional tasks are given to current library staff)
Next Step:

Library heads will approach individual departments for orientations/presentations.

Libraries will keep on collecting stuff, getting copyright clearance and uploading
full text articles.
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Libraries will create profile pages of faculty and researchers with integration with
IR
L I B R A R I E S
LESSON LEARNED
The Aga Khan University LIBRARIES
 Team building, keeping all on the same page.
 Keep Public Affairs/Marketing department engage for institutional branding
and layout.
 Contract agreement (between the institution and the vendor) should be
submitted to Legal Office for vetting well in time due to its technicality.
 Finance department should be taken on board, as payment plan including
tax issues are part of the agreement. It depends on tax treaty between the
two countries. All this should be part of planning phase.
 Institutions should avoid advance payment upfront to vendor. Breakup of
total payment into instalments on some agreed deliverables has been a
good experience.
 Taking all libraries on board well before time and keep them involve in
every step of the project has been a great success. This works well as
change management tool.
 Proper documentation of each and every step is very important to
keep track of all activities involved.
L I B R A R I E S
The Aga Khan University LIBRARIES
eCOMMONS@AKU
L I B R A R I E S
The Aga Khan University LIBRARIES
REFERENCES/SOURCES

Aga Khan University (2009), IR concept paper.

Aga Khan University Institutional Repository website http://ecommons.aku.edu

Association of Research Libraries (2009). The Research Library’s role in digital repository
services: final report of the ARL digital repository issues task force.

Bepress (2011). Next steps: your repository from set-up to launch. Digital Commons
Reference Material and User Guides. Paper 51.
http://digitalcommons.bepress.com/reference/51

Daly, Rebecca & Michael K. Organ (2009). Research online: Digital Commons as a
publishing platform at the University of Wollongong, Australia. Serials Review , 36 (3), 149153.

Li, Yuan and Billings, Marilyn S., "Strategies for Developing an Institutional Repository: A
Case Study of ScholarWorks@ Umass Amherst" (2011). Library and Librarians'
Publication. Paper 69.

Morris, Sammie L. (2011). Digital Commons: FSU's institutional repository (IR). Special
Collections and Archives. Paper 1.

Organ, M and Mandl, H (2007). Outsourcing open access: Digital Commons at the
University of Wollongong, Australia. OCLC Systems & Services, 23 (4), 353-362.
L I B R A R I E S
The Aga Khan University LIBRARIES
Thank You
L I B R A R I E S